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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, March 27, 2014 | 12 New Halton McMaster Family Health Centre part of plan continued from p.6 The end result of the more than $300-million initiative will be a new patient tower, renovated existing building, on-site health centre and parking garage. Eric Vandewall, president and chief executive officer of Joseph Brant Hospital, says the new facility will enable staff to provide the best possible patient care. "We are always striving to be leading practice -- buildings don't equal high quality, the work people help to provide, that's what equals high quality," he said. "Buildings are the enabler. The space is a tool in a tool kit that has to be laid out to facilitate and support excellent care." Phase one The multi-year redevelopment and expansion is being done in two phases. Construction on phase one, which includes the Halton McMaster Family Health Centre and an 823-space parking garage, started early last year and will be completed this spring. Construction costs for the first phase are approximately $24 million. The health centre will occupy about 46 per cent of the 40,000-square-foot building, with the remainder used for the hospital's administrative offices. The family health centre, which likely will be open to the public as early as this summer, is expected to see 8,500 patients initially. That number will grow to 10,000 per year. The current Halton McMaster Family Health Centre opened on Harvester Road in May 2010. Staff will relocate when the permanent facility is ready. The new building will be a family medicine practice, as well as a teaching facility. "It is going to provide clinical care for a large number of patients -- citizens of Burlington and Halton Region -- but is also going to be a teaching hub for our education program for the whole Halton Region," said Dr. David Price, professor and chair of the Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University. "There will be family medicine residents, medical students, nurse practitioner students, physician assistant students, midwifery, social work, pharmacy, etc." The construction of the Halton McMaster Family Health Centre marks Joseph Brant Hospital as a designated clinical education campus of McMaster University, with students learning such specialties as emergency medicine, surgery, obstetrics and family medicine. Vandewall expects some of the top medical students at Joseph Brant Hospital will want to stay. "If physicians are trained in a community, there is a very high probability they are going to stay in that community and practise afterwards," said Vandewall. "The conversion rate is roughly about 80-plus per cent in McMaster's experience. What that means is we are growing physicians in Burlington for Burlington." Construction is progressing on Joseph Brant Hospital's new Halton McMaster Family Health Centre. The general contractor is Bondfield Construction Company. | photos by Nikki Wesley ­ Oakville Beaver (Follow on Twitter @halton_photog or facebook.com/HaltonPhotog) We are always striving to be leading practice -- buildings don't equal high quality, the work people help to provide, that's what equals high quality. Buildings are the enabler. The space is a tool in a tool kit that has to be laid out to facilitate and support excellent care. president and CEO, Joseph Brant Hospital Eric Vandewall Eric Vandewall Meanwhile, drivers will be able to start using the parking garage this spring. After the hospital's redevelopment is complete, there will be in excess of 1,400 parking spots -- 500 more than now. Phase two Phase two construction will start early in 2015 and wrap up in late 2018/early 2019. It includes a new seven-storey patient tower, which will be built on the southwest side of the hospital. The existing building also will be renovated. The new tower will take about 30 months to construct, with another 18 months of renovations to the exist- ing hospital. "We don't have the luxury of excess space within the hospital, so we have to build the new tower first and once (it) is complete, we will occupy the new tower and complete the renovation," said Henri Dekker, director of redevelopment and facilities at the hospital. Among the new features is an expanded and renovated diagnostic imaging and medical diagnostics area, larger operating rooms and a new post-anesthetic care unit, a new main entrance, as well as expanded ambulatory care area, cancer clinic and intensive care unit. There also will be an expanded, modernized laboratory. An enclosed footbridge will connect the new patient tower, health centre and parking garage. There will also be a new expanded-capacity emergency department on the first floor of the new tower. It will be designed in a way to maximize patient flow. "It will have an impact by having a designed space that's state-of-the-art; it's best practice, so it's set up to maximize the patient experience," said Dr. Paul Faulkner, chief of emergency medicine. "It will be more fluid, it will be more comfortable, it will be better for them in terms of privacy, safety and simple things like access to washrooms that are better designed for patients," he said. "(They) will have privacy where they can be interviewed, assessed and examined and they won't have conversations being heard." According to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, total time spent in the Joseph Brant Hospital emergency room for nine out of 10 patients in January was 27.5 hours for complex conditions and 5.6 hours for minor or uncomplicated conditions. Provincial averages for total time (waiting, treated and discharged/admitted) spent in emergency rooms were 11.1 hours for complex conditions and 4.1 hours for minor or uncomplicated conditions, while the provincial target is eight hours and four hours, respectively. "Certainly our goal is all of these times will decrease as we develop processes that enable us to be more efficient, to flow patients through the department in a more timely fashion, to do things differently," said Faulkner. see Planning on p.13